At least in the West, politicians, corporations and media moguls can no longer take for granted their power to control the public discourse - and have it go unchallenged.

At its best, cinema does retain a remarkable ability to speak to people of every age, from every background, and in ways that almost any other art form in popular culture struggles to compete with.

Film and the other creative industries are being transformed by digital technologies.

Without any doubt at all, teacher quality is the fundamental differentiator. Not just, incidentally, of education, but I would argue, probably the biggest single differentiator of success for the nations of the 21st Century.

I've always sensed what a script should sound like - even before the movie's been made

A country that fails to value its teachers, fails to value its future.

There's always a miasma of misinformation emerging from the higher education sector as to which are the "best" courses to take. My advice would always be to ignore the perceived wisdom and look for the most reliable evidence on the ground.